The Royal Regiment, and Other NovelettesGrant, James
History
The Royal Regiment, and Other Novelettes
Grant, James
Scotland -- Fiction; Scotland -- History, Military -- Fiction
Prince Charles Edward was partial to the national uniform, and
frequently wore it. He is represented in red, in the miniature which
he gave to his secretary, Murray of Broughton, one of nine painted on
copper, as gifts to his principal adherents. His Life Guards, under
Lord Elcho, wore blue faced with red; but, in his small and gallant
army, the Duke of Perth's regiment, wore scarlet uniforms. (Vide
Spalding Club Miscell., vol. i.)
A scarlet uniform worn by Cardinal York, before he took holy orders,
and probably when he commanded a body of French and Irish troops at
Dunkirk, in 1745, is now preserved at Inzievar House, Fifeshire,
having been preserved by Edgar of Keithwick, who was long attached to
the last of the Stuarts, in the capacity of secretary.
Like the light cavalry, most of the militia corps would seem to have
been originally dressed in blue. According to an old ballad, the
Lothian regiment were so clad at the Battle of Bothwell-bridge in
1679.
The uniform of the first-named force has frequently varied. In 1784,
the clothing of the 17th, and similar corps, was changed from scarlet
to blue. They wore blue in the Peninsula, and in 1830 were clad in
scarlet again, when the moustache, which they and other corps had
adopted, was ordered to be shaved off. (Records of the 17th Lancers.)
The old Scottish Guard of the French kings wore hoquetons of white,
"in token of their unspotted fidelity," but the other Scottish troops
in the French service, the Gendarmes Écossais, who took precedence of
all the household troops, and the Infanterie Écossais, which took
rank after the 12th regiment of the old French line, wore blue, while
scarlet was the dress of the Irish brigades of the Louis' in later
years.
Our Chasseurs Brittaniques, a foreign corps, consisting in some
instances, of deserters from every army in Europe, wore the national
uniform, and thus, when on duty, frequently caused confusion and
mistakes by their ignorance of the English language.
In 1742, the coats and breeches of the line were tightened, and the
hats were looped up on three sides, and in that year, the 7th, or
South British Fusiliers, and the 21st, or North British Fusiliers,
figured in the high conical cap which came into vogue with the
Prussian tactics. Their coats had no collars, the skirts were
buttoned back and faced with blue. Numbers were first put on the
coat buttons in 1767.
Red and yellow being, as we have stated, the royal livery of
Scotland, the facings of Scottish regiments have generally been of
the latter colour, and many that now wear blue, had yellow when first
embodied.
The whole infantry of the East India Company wore the national
colour, and it is greatly to be regretted that, on the commencement
of our Volunteer movement, the Government did not enforce the
adoption of scarlet, instead of permitting the endless varieties of
silly colours and costumes now worn by many corps throughout the
United Kingdom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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